Football, basketball players brawling at Kansas

Here’s more from AP writer Doug Tucker on two days of fighting between football and basketball players at the University of Kansas:

By DOUG TUCKER

AP Sports Writer

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Two fights in two days between Kansas football and basketball players sent one basketball star to the hospital and left officials on this normally placid Midwestern campus red-faced with embarrassment.

Tyshawn Taylor, a sophomore guard on the basketball team which could be ranked as high as No. 1 in the preseason polls, was taken to a hospital Tuesday night for treatment of a hand injury that could sideline him up to a month.

Otherwise, there were no known injuries in the two incidents other than to the pride of this venerable institution, which boasts about the fact there was no vandalism and no arrests following all-night street celebrations of their 2008 NCAA basketball championship.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, there had been no arrests or charges.

“We’re hoping they get themselves together and act like adults, like they’re supposed to be,” campus police captain Schuyler Bailey said. “We’re hoping that this is done.”

The first fight broke out about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday outside Burge Union, the building where athletes take their meals. Police reports quoted witnesses as saying football and basketball players had been “baiting each other,” and that “there was a big mob of people outside the building and several people were fighting each other.”

Then, about 10 a.m. Wednesday on another part of campus, things got even uglier. Witnesses reported some players hurling racial insults and a basketball player shoving a football player down a few stairs.

The Kansas student newspaper said on its Web site that basketball players Marcus and Markieff Morris, Mario Little, Sherron Collins and Taylor were at the scene. The site also had a video of several basketball players, including Collins and the Morris twins, ushered into a van by associate athletic director Sean Lester.

Two football players, Chris Harris and all-Big 12 wide receiver Dezmon Briscoe, were seen talking to police.

Bailey said no police report had been issued on the second incident because no one had brought a complaint. A student, Richard Rockel, said he arrived after the fighting and saw four campus policemen talking to witnesses.

Taylor, the third-leading scorer for Kansas last year, said in a Facebook comment he later took down that he dislocated his finger “from throwing a punch.”

Taylor’s mother, Jeanell Taylor, refused to speak with reporters Wednesday as she walked out of the building that houses the Kansas coaches’ offices.

Bailey was seen walking into a meeting with athletics department officials, including Lew Perkins, late Wednesday afternoon.

Neither police nor school officials said they knew what started the fights.

The incidents could hardly have come at a worse time for the Jayhawks. Their football team is 3-0 and ranked No. 20 this week, and the basketball team, with nearly everyone back from the team that won last year’s Big 12 title, expects to contend for a national championship.

Perkins met with the football and basketball teams Wednesday and representatives of each squad issued a statement in support of each other.

“We realize that over the past couple of days we’ve let a disagreement between a few guys grow bigger than it ever should have. We’re embarrassed about that,” the statement said. “Now we want everyone know that we have met and talked it out. We realize we’re all Jayhawks. We’re proud of what both teams have accomplished.

“We appreciate the support these teams give each other. We’ll be in the stands rooting for each other like we always have. We all wear KANSAS on our uniforms, and we’re proud of that. We need to act like it.”

The police report on the Tuesday evening incident said there were about 100 people in the parking lot and “the altercation was physical.”

The police report quoted an employee of a shop in the Burge Union, Tiffany Nichols, as saying she believed that members “of the KU basketball team were fighting with members from the KU football team.”